The Authorities Have Spoken

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tay

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May 20, 2012
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El Salvador’s Supreme Court has decided to deny a 22-year-old woman a lifesaving abortion, ruling against making a medical exception to the conservative nation’s stringent abortion ban. Without an abortion, the woman will likely die — along with her nonviable fetus, which is missing its brain.

The 22-year-old mother of one, identified only as Beatriz, is four-and-a-half months pregnant, but her doctors have confirmed that the fetus has anencephaly (developing without a brain and certain parts of the skull) and that the pregnancy is nonviable. In addition to the fetal diagnosis, Beatriz is experiencing critical health complications related to her lupus and kidney disease.

Beatriz has been fighting for an abortion for the past three months, and several international human rights organizations have taken up her case. But it’s been an uphill battle in her deeply Catholic nation, where abortion is illegal under absolutely all circumstances and punishable by up to 30 years in prison.

After El Salvador’s attorney general refused to grant Beatriz and her doctors an exception to the harsh law, the pregnant woman turned to the Supreme Court.


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Salvadoran Woman Has Been Denied A Life-Saving Abortion Even Though Her Fetus Is Missing Its Brain | ThinkProgress
 
EagleSmack

EagleSmack

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tay said:
Of course the USA has some trying for the same lack of choice.........
Click to expand...

Blah blah blah

In the US there are doctors that will stick scissors in newborns for ya. Any woman can get an abortion in any state. Heck they are fighting to allow teens to get them without parental permission. A teen can't even take asprin in school without parental permission but when it comes to abortion... on demand! Oh and taxpayer funded!
 
T

tay

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May 20, 2012
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Senegalese law bans raped 10-year-old from aborting twins








A 10-year-old girl who is pregnant with twins after she was raped by a neighbour has been forced to continue with her pregnancy after human rights campaigners lost their fight to secure a legal route to abortion.



The plight of the girl, who is five months pregnant and lives in Ziguinchor in the south, highlights the heavy cost women and children are paying for a Napoleonic law on abortion that is still in force in the former French colony.



"She is going to have to go through with the pregnancy," said Fatou Kiné Camara, president of the Senegalese women lawyers' association. "The best we can do is keep up pressure on the authorities to ensure the girl gets regular scans and free medical care.



"Senegal's abortion law is one of the harshest and deadliest in Africa. A doctor or pharmacist found guilty of having a role in a termination faces being struck off. A woman found guilty of abortion can be jailed for up to 10 years."



Forty women were held in custody in Senegal on charges linked to the crimes of abortion or infanticide in the first six months of last year, official figures show. According to estimates, hundreds of women die every year from botched illegal terminations.



"For a termination to be legal in Senegal, three doctors have to certify that the woman will die unless she aborts immediately. Poor people in Senegal are lucky if they see one doctor in their lifetime, let alone three," Camara said.



"A single medical certificate costs 10,000 CFA francs ($20), which is prohibitive. We had a previous case of a raped nine-year-old who had to go through with her pregnancy. We paid for her caesarean but she died a few months after the baby was born, presumably because the physical trauma of childbirth was too great."



The women lawyers' association is lobbying MPs to align Senegal's abortion legislation with the African charter on women's rights, which the country ratified 10 years ago. Its provisions – legal medical abortion in cases of rape and incest, or where a woman's physical or mental health is threatened – have never been added to the statute book.



"The greatest unfairness is that the poor are the victims of our archaic legislation," said Camara, a law professor at Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar. "Anyone with enough money can easily have an abortion at a private clinic. But if you are poor you are expected to go through the legal motions or risk your life in a backstreet clinic."


Muslim Senegal is constitutionally secular, but customary law is in widespread use. At least 10% of girls are married before 14, and men can have up to four wives. But, according to Camara, religion and polygamy are not the cause of the rights shortfall. "Ignorance is the biggest enemy and it is a problem both among ordinary people and among people they look up to, like religious leaders," she said.




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Senegalese law bans raped 10-year-old from aborting twins | Global development | theguardian.com
 
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